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Pricing



One important issue will of course be the pricing of the media and hardware. According to Philips the production of the media should not be much more complicated than the production of current dual layer DVD-ROM discs. Mrs. Harpe of Philips Consumer Electronics says: “It’s too early to be specific about prices. However, we can say that the production process of dual layer DVD+R is similar to DVD9 production.” Philips could not tell us if the prices of the media will also be similar, but according to the company the prices should become available closer to introduction date. We asked the same question to Pioneer. “It is a little bit early to discuss the price of technology that is under development. But a reasonable price of dual layer DVD media will be double price of single DVD media at initial stage.” said Mr. Yoshimura.

Besides the dual format DVD+R and DVD-R formats, there will likely also be a market for rewritable formats. Both companies have told us that also dual layer rewriteable discs are in development. Philips expects to have this kind of media available later this year. Pioneer also expects to release dual layer DVD-RW but also sees some problems. Mr. Yoshimura explains: “From a technical point of view it is no problem to develop dual layer DVD-RW media. But reflectivity of dual DVD-RW media should be half of existing dual DVD-ROM media. This means that existing DVD players/drives read compatibility will have a problem.”



Knowing this it could be that dual layer rewriteable discs will face some compatibility problems. Currently the single layer rewriteable formats also face the lowest compatibility numbers. Philips is however clear about compatibility; “The dual layer DVD+R will be compatible with existing DVD Video and DVD ROM players: current expectation is at least as compatible as DVD+RW discs are”. Pioneer expects that its dual layer discs will have the same compatibility as current DVD-R discs.

Compatibility on the reading side of dual layer write once formats should be about the same as single layer write once formats, but what about writing? Will our current DVD recorders be able to record on dual layer media?

According to Philips it is very likely you will need to purchase a new DVD recorder: “It is likely that new hardware (such as ICs) will be required in the final product to accommodate variations in media and drives from different vendors. At this time, we can say with certainty that 4x, 2.4x and 1x drives lack the requisite laser power to burn a double layer DVD+R disc.”, said Mr. Driessen from Philips Optical Storage Communications in a recent mail to us. Philips did introduce a prototype on a modified 8x DVD+R burner but expects that to ensure compatibility with media of more manufacturers a new DVD recorder will be needed. Pioneer thinks about a firmware upgrade: “Current DVD recorder/writers can not recognize blank dual DVD-R media due to media recognition. To add write function to dual DVD-R media, additional firmware sequence is required.”


Disadvantages



Although dual layer DVD recordable discs have not even been introduced yet we can be sure that there will be a large market for the products. Our expectations are that once the technology has matured it will likely become cheaper and more reliable and it will likely go the same way as single layer discs. The entertainment industry might dislike the dual layer technology as it allows consumers to create backups of DVD movies without reducing the size of the movie, as is currently needed. Current movies, most of the time, do not fit on 4.7 GB discs and consumers need to go through some trouble to make backups. Dual layer DVD discs will completely change this.



A disadvantage seems to lie in the fact that the compatibility of the discs is rather low. Although it’s still reasonable, the dual layer discs are not 100% compatible and thus it will lead to consumer annoyance. We hope that the companies will be able to increase compatibility as the technology progresses. We were also concerned about the safety of the discs as we wondered if the data on a dual layer disc would be of the same quality as on a single layer disc. Both companies assured us that the same quality standards apply to dual layer discs as for single layer discs.



The technology sounds promising and it’s clear that both companies have spent a lot of Research and Development time in the dual layer DVD format. However Philips could be more specific about release dates, compatibility and the technology. We expect that Pioneer will need to work hard to keep up with Philips. The future will tell is this will be as a big success as the current single layer DVD recordable.